HIV/AIDS mothers, their children and the future of PNG

AT PRESENT of the 40 million people worldwide infected with HIV/AIDS, nearly 2.7 million are children below the age of 15.
About 90% of these infected children contracted the virus by mother-to-baby transmission. Another 11.8 million young people aged 15 to 24 years are also already infected.

Now that Papua New Guinea has reached the 1% rate of infection, the danger of a HIV/AIDS pandemic seems imminent.

These are scary statistics, particularly in terms of what they mean for future generations. If current trends continue, it is estimated that the number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region will increase from half a million in 2001 to 11 million by 2010.

This means that the whole socio-economic structure of PNG will be threatened. Unless cost-effective preventive and/or curative HIV/AIDS medication is discovered pretty soon, which does not look very likely right now, the only hope we have left is to bring about the essential behavioural changes that are needed to turn the tide on the spread of HIV/AIDS.

What then are these crucial behavioural changes that hold the promise of a brighter future?

The most important change that needs to occur is that protected sex becomes the generally accepted practice within PNG.

People must be made to realise that by practising unprotected sex, they threaten not only their own lives but also the future of their partners and their children.
They must, therefore, be encouraged that when they have sex, they must use condoms.

All this is of course easier said than done, particularly in societies with a traditional culture of male domination.

To bring about behavioural changes in people’s sexual practices is one of the most difficult objectives to achieve; the downside is simply continuing loss of life.
Dr Piot of UNAIDS, when he recently visited PNG, was understandably shocked by the dramatic rise in the numbers living with HIV/AIDS in PNG and described what was happening as a “clearly heterosexual type of epidemic that is greatly affecting women”.

There seems to be a growing awareness within PNG that a necessary pre-condition of reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS is a radical change in gender relations.

Dr Moiya spelled this out clearly when he said in an ABC interview that “it is not right to treat a woman the way our men are treating them, like insisting on forceful sex and rape in marriage”. He stressed perceptively that while such gender relations persist, young girls lack the negotiating power to avoid infection. This means that many young girls become innocent victims of their male counterparts and often give birth to infected babies.

The subsequent death of a mother pervades every aspect of her child’s life. Moreover, HIV/AIDS not only kills mothers of young children but also destroys the protective network in children’s lives simply because kin, teachers, social welfare workers etc, etc are also dying.

A change in the role and status of PNG women is absolutely essential to winning the war against HIV/AIDS in PNG.

Talking about women and HIV/AIDS, I have recently been able to exchange ideas and thoughts with one of the world’s most remarkable women - Dr Nafis Sadik - chosen by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to be his Special HIV/AIDS Envoy for Asia and the/Pacific.

I have watched her career with admiration and was fortunate enough to have met her some years ago when she was still with UNFPA, and we discussed different aspects of population growth.

Our earlier shared interests have recently been revived by both of us now having special concerns for HIV/AIDS in Papua New Guinea.

She expressed particular interest and support for a project that I compiled together with a PNG NGO counterpart and that I hope will help make a vital contribution in fighting the pandemic.

In the capacity of a British NGO chairperson, I plan to submit this project to the PNG Government in the hope it can be funded from the Global Fund’s grant to the PNG government so that further time may not be lost seeking funds from elsewhere.

We must all play what parts we can in supporting each other.
Dame Carol Kidu is another key woman deeply concerned about PNG and AIDS and she, too, has expressed interest in our project proposal.

When I shall be in PNG later in the year in the role of Honorary Visiting Professor at the Divine Word University, it would be wonderful to be able to make a direct contribution to the battle against HIV/AIDS at ground level in this way.

Since in this year’s British Honours List I was awarded an OBE for services I rendered to rural and women’s development, especially in Papua New Guinea, I am now eager to prove myself worthy of the honour bestowed on me.